7 comments:

Hi Bob - in La Nina years, we're pumping more heat into the oceans and less in the atmosphere. So when does that extra heat come back to the surface? If it's many many decades in the future, we might discount the harm we'll ultimately experience, but if it's only a few years, then La Nina years haven't really bought us any advantages.

La Nina are the cold phase of the El Nino - Southern Oscillation. Cold for the eastern Pacific, that is. The heat is buried in the Western Pacific during La Nina. When the cycle returns to the warm phase (El Nino), the warm water from the west sloshes to the east and the heat gets released back to the atmosphere.

This cycle takes 3-8 years. In terms of climate, this is a bump on the general trend. As the tremendously warm 1998 El Nino showed, this bump can be pretty large. The last decade, we've been seeing mostly La Nina, which makes things look cooler than they'd otherwise be.

So if I've got it right, an intense La Nina might mean a colder-than-average year, but that increases the likelihood of warmer-than-average temps 3-8 years in the future?

I suppose the reverse is also true - a 1998-strength El Nino will leave the oceans cooler and atmosphere warmer than would otherwise have been the case, and increase the likelihood of colder years subsequently?

My first reaction, and always main line, response is -- if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

But (and I haven't worked it out yet) it's worth delving in to the hows and whys at some length. And maybe the result of my further thoughts will be favorable. _Some_ of the amazing things suggested to be true, like the phenomenal computing power we now have, turn out to be both true and good. Still, as a conservative, my expectation is that the new thing doesn't really work.

Welcome

I'll be trying what seems to be an unusual approach in blogs -- writing to be inclusive of students in middle school and jr. high*, as well as teachers and parents (whether for their own information or to help their children). To that end, comments will have to pass a stricter standard than I'd apply for an all-comers site. It shouldn't be onerous, just keep to the topic and use clean language.

I expect it to be fun for all, however, as you really can get quite far in understanding the world, even climate, by understanding this sort of fundamental. If I get too much less fundamental, let me know where I went astray.

* Ok, I concede that not many middle school students will get everything. Even a fair number of adults will find some parts hard to follow. Still, some middle school kids will have fun. And almost everyone will follow a number of posts just fine.

Please see the comment policy for details. And the link policy for details about that. The latter is more open than you might expect.

About Me

In my day job I work on the oceanography, meteorology, climatology, glaciology end of my science interests, but I'm interested in everything, science or not. So I've also been on stage in a production of Comedy of Errors, run an ultramarathon, and been to Epidaurus, Greece, to see a production of Euripides' Iphigenia among the Taurians
Prior to starting the current job, I was a post-doc in oceanography in the UCAR ocean modelling program, and earned my doctorate from the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago (1989). My undergraduate degree involved Applied Math, Engineering, Astrophysics, and Glaciology.
Of course I don't speak for my employer, whoever that may be.